Despite outcry, future school start date stays

Palm Beach County keeps class calendar for Aug. 10

School officials heard the outcry but decided nothing can be done: The newest calendars show Palm Beach County schools will start Aug. 10 in 2020 and 2021.

Many parents resisted these start dates, the earliest allowed by state law, when they were first proposed in April. They said the Aug. 10 start would interfere with traditional family vacations in August and northern sleepaway camp schedules. Raised in the Northeast, many asked: Shouldn’t school start closer to Labor Day?

They continue to be angry. “They look at it as a ‘rich people’s problem,’” said parent Merideth Leeds of Boca Raton, who said her children’s sleepaway camp ends Aug. 15. “They forget their own teachers work at these northern camps. I don’t understand why school has to start earlier and earlier.”

School board member Marcia Andrews agreed.

“I’m not happy,” she said. “I do feel we can do better.”

This year, Palm Beach County schools will open to students on Aug. 12. In Broward, school will start on Aug. 14; in Miami-Dade, on Aug. 20.

For Palm Beach County, Aug. 10, 2020, would be the earliest start date since 2005.

Vicki Evan-Pare, the Palm Beach County school district’s director of employee and labor relations, said her committee of school staff tried an assortment of ways to get school to start later after the School Board sent the proposed calendars back in April. But she said it was impossible to have 90 days in each semester and accommodate every interest group that is invested in school scheduling.

She said high school principals emphasized the importance of first semester ending before winter break so teens don’t have to take their end-of-semester exams after a two-week vacation. Ending the first semester in December forces school to begin in August to ensure an equal number of days in each semester.

Starting later than Aug. 10 also poses a problem for the school district’s lowest-paid workers, such as bus drivers and cafeteria staff, who would have to go 10 weeks without a paycheck instead of eight. They earn $10.25 an hour, Evans-Pare said.

First semester has proven to be a complicated scheduling squeeze as there are many days off, including Labor Day, two Jewish holidays and a week off for Thanksgiving.

In 2020, school also will close for two election days: Aug. 25 and Nov. 3. Schools serve as polling places, and the district maintains that students and voters should not mix for security reasons.

Evans-Pare said the semester is so tight the committee couldn’t fit in Veterans Day as a day off for students in 2020, although they fit it in 2021. School board members said this was a calendar priority last month after hearing complaints from veterans.

In 2015, the Florida Legislature adopted rules allowing schools to open as early as Aug. 10. The measure, signed by Gov. Rick Scott, overturned a 2006 law that prevented schools from opening any earlier than two weeks before Labor Day.

Evans-Pare said she surveyed Florida’s school districts and 58 of 67 are going to start on Aug. 10.

“We are starting at the same time as other districts,” she said. “We do things differently from schools in the Northeast.”

The school board will finalize the proposed calendars on July 24.